


The Story So Far

by Wabi_sabi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 21:32:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wabi_sabi/pseuds/Wabi_sabi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petra Ral came to Trost hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her personal life. Here are rooms with brick walls, and windowsills covered in plant pots. Cold air that snatches warmth away, and chipped coffee mugs to chase away the frigidness clouding the mind. Here are instruments waiting to be played, and food waiting to be prepared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

"I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars" -T. E. Lawrence

**The Story So Far**

Chapter One

Disclaimer (applies for all chapters): I do not own any of these characters nor Attack On Titan. The books mentioned below are not owned by me, but are favorites of mine.

* * *

"From now on you can call this place your home," the realtor says in a kind voice that matches the warm gaze of her brown eyes partially hidden behind matching goggles. "Thank you, Hanji," replies the young woman whom just decided to move into Hanji's home-turned-apartment-complex. "It made not be as big as some modern style apartments, but I like to believe the coziness of this place charms my tenants into renting them," Hanji continues in a voice that rises as her level of excitement expands. Arms raising and palms open as she goes over the details of the small one-bedroom space Petra has decided to rent. "The sink is made out of small river stones the old house owner picked out himself!" Hanji exclaims happily, turning to face Petra while simultaneously walking backwards on the wooden floor to the corner where the kitchen is placed.

Petra follows her at a slower pace that does nothing to hide the bewilderment that clearly shows on her heart-shaped face. Amber eyes wide and teeth biting her lower lip as she sets sight of the place she would now call home. The small, open window above said river stone sink sets a atmosphere of warmth and calmness that immediately soothes away Petra's frown. The cool summer breeze -what she assumes to be summer's parting wave as autumn is close on it's heels- embraces the slender woman with an air of firmness about it. Almost commanding in the way it made her long-sleeve button up cling to her arms and sides, but swaying her floral long skirt around her bare legs in what she read as summer's attempt at asking her to loosen up. Abandoning the small town she had grown up in, and abandoning the person responsible for many of her accomplishments had taken a heavier toll than she had first expected. The carefree sprint she had carried in her feet throughout her younger years seems to have left the moment she had stepped into that lonely bus station in the dead of night. Asking, searching, for refuge from a place that was no longer her home.

"Ms. Ral?" Hanji asks with slight frown perching between her brows the same way small birds would sometimes perch on the electricity cables hanging around the world. Coming our of her daze, Petra's eyes focus once more on the woman to whom she would be paying rent to from now on.

"Yes, Hanji?" Petra says apologetically. A corner of her lips curling upwards as the brunette woman commences her spoken words again.

"As I was saying," she begins with her eyes jumping from object to object as she points out the 'enchanting kitchen items that would undoubtedly become her dearest beloved'. And while Petra could definitely proclaim she might come to love all the little quirks of her new place; she is hesitant to say she would ever come to love an old pair of kitchen mittens Hanji pulls out of the stove and are marked with years of used and spotted with grease.

"You will love them, I assure you," claims Hanji with flushed cheeks and unfocused eyes, "love them and treat them kindly for their magic is one that will only be revealed with love."

After spending two nights at a nearby hotel and traveling almost twenty-six hours in a sometimes-empty, sometimes-too-full bus. Petra has come to appreciate what ever form of kindness was bestowed on her, as well as accept with a grateful smile the eccentric qualities of the various personalities she has come to meet.

"Yes," she says now with a kind smile and relaxed tone, "I will come to love them."

And even though the old pair of mittens are obviously worn out from years of use and marked with the passing of grease and time, she could almost be certain that she would come to be fond of them.

"Imagine the way you want your apartment to be and go from there," Hanji says as she places the old kitchen mittens back inside the oven before clapping her hands excitedly and showing her more of her new home.

"The refrigerator may not be the newest model, but it works perfectly fine and will give you no troubles at all." Petra supposes Hanji is right. Except for the upper metallic compartment where she assumes will be where cereals and other items of the like are to be placed, and which is adorned by metallic forest green leaves that wind around real ones of a shade lighter. Petra figures the herbs have sprouted from the nearby potted plants on the windowsill residing directly on the left of said refrigerator.

"I managed to convince a friend of mine to renovate the wooden floor on this part of the apartment and changing it into a tile floor instead," continues Hanji. Stepping loudly on the tile floor with her knee-high brown boots to emphasize her words. This was also something Petra has already notice, but still turns her gaze downwards at the apple-colored square tiles that seem to draw in the bone paint of the walls, the light shade of brown of the wooden cabinets, and the forest green of the plants to a cozy painting of colors.

"It's lovely," she mentions.

Hanji's smile grows larger alongside the happy spark in her eyes, "yes yes, it is." "Over here," Hanji exclaims, right forefinger pointed at the red bricked gas stove, "is the old styled stove you already had the pleasure of seeing and which by miracle alone, works!"

"That's reassuring," Petra mumbles to deaf ears for Hanji has excitedly already moved onto the next object she wants to broadcast.

"The same friend who changed the floor also managed to adjust an updated microwave into the space old cabinets used to be," she says while opening the steel microwave's door to show Petra the clean interior and the way it worked.

"The plants on the windowsill were my idea, and also the bead curtain that leads from the kitchen to the side living room," she plows on, changing directions mid-stride to pass through said bead curtain, and thus breaking the woven blood-red and clay colored pattern that had stayed motionless until then. Petra walks through next. Palms open and fingers touching the cool beads with the faintest of whispers as they hang from just above the threshold, and her feet step onto the wooden floor once more.

"The living room is small, but I hope that's not a problem," Hanji says taking a seat on one of the two small couches supported by wood and fitted with cream-colored cushion while orange and teal filled cushions lay spread out on them. They are surrounding a small, matching wooden coffee table, and flanked by two smaller tables on each side. Both wooden surfaces holding a white colored lamp on them.

"Of course not," Petra assures the woman, before taking a seat on the other couch across from her's. Noting -with a strange sense of conformity- that the fireplace she had noticed before, but merely spare a glance at, is now occupied with cut pieces of logs that sets the idea of chasing away the crisp air of a cold November night with a warm fire that would cast the soundtrack of cracking wood and embers, into her mind.

"Excellent," Hanji says before getting up and motioning with wide arms at the wide sliding doors behind her that opened to a small balcony, "this here will give you a perfect view of the setting sun behind those mountains over there, and also of the sun's first rays washing over the tree tops in the early morning."

Petra has already paid the first two months in advance, but Hanji seems determined to make sure to show her renting the apartment has been one of the best decision she has ever made.

"Over there is where you will spent most of your time eating at," she says while pointing to the kitchen's side where a white wooden table stands housing four similar chairs under it, and which holds a crystal vase filled with sunflowers placed on a brown cloth that has been patched around the edges with red string.

"The Red String of Fate," she mumbles to herself. Not noticing the slight widening on Hanji's eyes as Petra's soft words are overheard.

"This will be where you can watch anything you want," Hanji continues on, despite the sudden spark of curiosity that has catch on fire with Petra's voiced thoughts, "from cooking shows to the news."

Petra's wondering eyes turn to look at a tv that is big enough for her not to miss any details from where she'd be eating dinner, yet small enough for it to not damage her eyes at close range. It is placed on a long black-wood table that runs from half the stretch of the brick wall, behind which her bedroom is.

"I took a leaf out of Japanese home decoration by placing a heated table and a set of seating cushions on the empty space before it, where you can watch the TV comfortably from." Petra nods gratefully before Hanji turns towards the wall running from one hallway to another where various paintings of landscapes and town alleys were depicted.

"As you already know," Hanji said walking past the tv but stopping close by, "passing this other bead curtain is where your bedroom is, and the door besides it leads to your restroom."

Petra nods again for she has already set foot pass the beaded curtain that mirrors that from the kitchen, and has seen what her bedroom would be like.

"And while I offer my tenants free laundry service, I have to ask for the drying to be done on the two linen lines hanging across the two poles on the ends of the balcony so that the clothes can be sun dried," explains Hanji. Crossing the apartment once more to the sitting area where the fireplace is at, and to the set of transparent sliding doors that open to the said balcony.

"While this is better for the electricity bill, it does cause some issues," Hanji continues with an apologetically tone as Petra steps through the sliding doors to join her. "The weather, for example, is unpredictable and clothes would have to be dried in one of the many laundry places around the area."

"It's alright," Petra reassures her with a smile, for the calming breeze and the stunning view of the mountain valley made the small sacrifice of drying clothes outdoors or spending spare change in laundry spaces worth it. Hanji nods. Content with her newest tenant's quick acceptance to the small inconvenience.

"You can officially move in whenever you would like," Hanji says while taking the apartment's key out of a pocket in her pants and disposing the small metal object on Petra's open palm. "This night should be fine," Petra says in return. Pocketing the key inside one of the breast pockets of her button up shirt.

"Good," affirms Hanji with a quick nod of her head, before announcing she has to leave to help a friend of her's clean some things up.

Leaving her alone with a click of the front door to her own thoughts, and to quiet the pounding memories that plead to surface with the movements of her hands. She moves furniture, arranges tables differently, and leaves her new apartment to start bringing her spare belongings in. And after folding the few clean clothes she had packed and washed. After placing her toothpaste and toothbrush on her restroom's counter, and turning the tv on to a cooking channel she sets out again. Buying groceries from the super market down the street: vegetables, fruits, bread and butter. Cooking utensils from a store right beside it: spoons, plates, bowls and pans. And new bed sheets from the a department store across a small cafe advertising 'Now Hiring' signs. Petra arrives back to her apartment with loaded arms and sets out to work once more. Arranging pans and pots into cabinets, and plates and glasses onto shelves.

Fruits and vegetables on the table surrounding the sunflowers. Placing the cheese and milk inside the refrigerator, and the wine and bread placed close together above the fridge in the metallic green compartment. She sits idly for a few minutes after surfing through channels between escapes to the kitchen to arrange more utensils and food, before deciding to leave her apartment once more.

Coming back mere moments later with a paper application clutched tightly inside her right hand.

After spending hours making her apartment her own and unpacking the few possessions she had hastily packed the night she had left her old town, she gazes outside balcony doors and notices the lilac tree partially hidden from view behind the windowsill. Takes in how the blazing light of the setting sun changes the leave's colors from their vibrant shade of green to resemble that of autumn's reddish locks.

* * *

For Petra, the world begins and ends with her mother's old quilt. A parchment of thick cloth patched countless of times to depict the rise and fall of her mother's moods. There are dark blue pieces of cut cloth were thousands of tiny crosses made of yellow string shine through. Each dot marking the space of a star she had once upon a time gazed at as she'd laid on the soft grass behind her house. There are faded orange patches that had once held the brilliance of a ripe pumpkin, and stand for the time in her mother's life when she had read a book and discovered through it that orange was the color of extraordinary. These colors: matching and crossing forest greens, lighter hues of blue and red, deep violets, and small corners of black; each match a mood, and each patch is attached to a memory.

The crossfire red marking the year Petra's mother had married her father. The lightest hue of blue marking the time she had gone to the beach, not for the first time, but her first as a married woman. The deep violet for her favorite flowers. And the black patches that had been added 14 years after her death by the small hands of a young girl. Marking the tragedy of the daughter that had been born as her mother's last breath had left her body. Petra's first touch of warmth had been when her father had enveloped her within her mother's quilt. The smell of her in it soothing the cries Petra had been crying since her father had taken her home. She had grown accustomed to a forgetful father who lived for her and survived on empty air and sorrowful apologies, and to spending weekends watching movies alongside her father with her mother's quilt tucked around her. Petra had learned from a young age to rely on what was available, and to be compassionate by placing her father's needs before her own.

Cooking dinner and staying in while her classmates went out together. Washing clothes and reminding her father to eat while her classmates' mothers scowled them for not completing a school assignment. Petra never resented her father for the things she had missed out on doing, for he had given her far better things: a painting of a woman facing away with auburn locks and slender figure that her mother had titled 'self-portrait', and a old book list her mother had made when she had been in her early twenties. Searching within herself and between ink marked pages the meaning behind the word 'myself'. For her tenth birthday he had given Petra a crystal flower vase and seeds to all of her mother's favorite flowers, vegetables, and fruits.

She remembers the eagerness with which she had torn away at the paper packages, and how bright-eyed she must have seen as she'd looked up and asked her father if they could go out and plant now. That had been the birthday when trees had grown from the random spots she had dig and planted a seed on. Hopping from one spot to the next with no sense of order or organization. The year when tendrils had taken over the right side of the one-story brick house she had grown up in, while the other side remain hopelessly bare with mere wildflowers ebbing towards it with the passing breeze. Every day she would go out and water each earthy bump where a seed had been laid in. And after spring had lifted it's cloak to pass its turn to summer; the flowers and trees had began to sprout and bear the promises of fruit and open petals.

Petra's tenth birthday had been when her love for flowers had been born, and when she had began to bring in a few flowers every few days to be put in the crystal vase she had set on her bedroom's windowsill. For her eleventh birthday her father had given her a box filled with all the books her mother had read as a young girl, an adolescent, and as a grown woman. Never expecting for his daughter to devour the printed words with the eagerness of a small lioness, and never dreaming of his child's reading level to match that of an eighteen-year-old. That had been the year English teachers had begged for her to accept taking advance classes, and the year she had bluntly said no. The year when nights where spent thinking of the lonely, blond homeless boy the narrator of On the Road had encounter in the back of a pick-up truck in the middle of Mississippi on his trip across the country in search for an old friend. The year she had begged and bribed with her father to change the paint on her walls from their placid earthly cane color to that of the pumpkin-orange color of extraordinary after ready The Sky Is Everywhere.

Petra's eleventh birthday had been the start of her reading habits, and the year she had experienced her first heartache by reading all the books her own mother had read, but not being able to talk to her about them or laugh with her, or cry at the character's pain she had felt as her own. For her twelve birthday, Petra's father had placed on her lap a faded plastic box, and encouraged her to open it with motioning hands and a kind smile that had formed wrinkles around his eyes. Inside laid small string cylinders and carelessly thrown long tendrils of different-colored strings, and in the middle of all the color chaos was placed a steel needle. She knew without having to ask her father to whom the box had belonged to.

That was the year fresh flowers were placed on a white windowsill that set off the pumpkin orange of her room, and small mountains of books stood precariously besides her bed and desk. While she sat cross-legged on the floor brow furrowed with a 'How To Knit/Sew' magazine between her hands. That was the year Petra had learned how sharp the pain of a needle pinch could be, and the year when she realized her father's cough had lasted more than two months. For her thirteen birthday, her father had given her the most valuable of all of her presents combined. With weak and trembling hands he had pulled out her mother's thick quilt from inside a simple large birthday bag, and two pieces of paper she would later open to reveal his handwriting and her mother's final letter to her.

That had been the year when the flowers and trees around her house had been neglected, but had grown despite her lack of presence under the rays of the sun and the continuously rain that fell the summer following her thirteen birthday. It had been during that year where she had allowed herself, for the first time, to shed tears in front of people. For as they lowered her father's simple brown casket into the deep wet soil to lay timelessly besides that of her mother's, she had screamed at the men to stop. Begged for them not to leave him alone in that dark hole; not to seal him away from the sunshine he had so dearly loved. 'I'm sorry.'

Was what her father had written at the end of his parting letter for her. The words resounding within her skull as she remembered the man he'd turned into after her mother's death. 'It is my wish to be with her.' Was his form of explanation for giving up, but not one she could fault him for. After her father's death she had been asked to packed their belongings and store the pieces of furniture alongside the suitcases of memories inside a storage house. And after that she had been whisked away for four long years to be looked after by grown-ups who were kind, but were not her father or mother.

For Petra's fourteenth birthday, she had locked herself inside the room belonging to her, and patched the black pieces of cloth she had previously cut out from an old curtain onto her mother's quilt. That had been the year when she had swallowed her tears in order to work through her pain and accomplish the dreams her parents would have wanted her to follow. It was the year when she had once again renounced her teachers' suggestions at taking higher level classes to continue alongside people her own age. That was the year when her nightmares threaten to grow fingers to tear through her, but ones she managed to quench under vigorous studies and sleepless nights. Petra's fourteen birthday was the beginning of her lonely years where she learned how to thread alone in the sea of people around her, and the year that was marked by sharp pains inside her chest at every memory of what she had lost.

The following birthdays leading up to her eighteen one were spent laying on different patches of grass and allowing silent tears to cruise freely down her cheeks until her chest heaved at the emptiness of it all. For her eighteen birthday, her father left her his house and the land around it. For her eighteen birthday, her mother had left her a note with the code of a bank savings account she had set up for Petra to access when she reached adulthood. Painting through ink her secret thoughts of having her daughter graduate from college.

A painter, a cook, anything she wanted to be, her mother wrote, she could be. She had set up an account where she had deposit all of her own savings on in order to give her daughter the choice she had not been given, and her father had transfer all of his own funds to the same account when he had felt the coldness of death caressing his toes. Petra had gone through ten years of college, and received her diploma in medicine by the time she was 28. Working ahead, and studying through summers while working part-time at the college's coffee shop. A task that nearly brought her to her knees. She remembers how after the graduation ceremony she had taken off her ridiculously expensive cap and gown to toss them carelessly inside the trunk of her old pick-up truck.

The auburn locks she had painstakingly straighten waving behind her head with a wild applause of their own as the truck picked up speed down the road, and the air blowing in through her open windows roar in. Petra had driven four hours with no sound but that of the wind, before turning into an empty pavement road announcing the upcoming Shiganshina's promise land of cold bones and cement blocks.

"I finished school mom and dad," she had spoken to them while around her the newborn green leaves of spring swayed to a dance of their own. "I'm a psychiatrist now," she continued on with a proud smile on her face, "sorry I couldn't be a painter like you wanted mom, but I'm decent at cooking at least." She had meant that as a joke, but her eyes pricked with tears.

"I learned to play guitar and the ukulele from a classmate," she had said through tears and broken sobs, "I learned how to make different kind of coffees and which kind of tea calms the nerves.

"I love you," the sound of her heaving cries broke the calm tranquility that engulfed the cemetery, but she still continued on, "I love you, both so much. I- I wished you were here. With- with me." Petra's knees had given under her after that. Her forehead pressing against the cool grass that covered their tombs as she cried broken sobs for the years her parents had missed of her growing up, and the years she had missed of their life lessons and love.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was the scent of burnt coffee beans that usually alerted her of her father's presence, and it was the absence of it in the mornings that coldly reminder her that he was no longer able to wake up.

 

 

 

_"Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be." -Rumi_

 

 

 

                 **The Story So Far**  


 

                    Chapter Two

 

* * *

 

The sound of a sizzling pan and a kettle whistling with boiling water fills the air of Petra's apartment as the young woman crosses from one kitchen corner to another. Her bare feet slapping against the apple tiled floor as her cold toes travel back and forth over its smooth surface. Possessing the grace and tack of someone who has been cooking for years, yet with the appearance of an apprentice. Auburn hair hastily held in a low bun by long pins that allow more than a few tendrils to escape its loose hold, and wearing an old fitted red apron that is marked by the passing of faded oil spots.

 

A mere thirty minutes have already passed since Petra decided to rise from the spotless wooden floor. Tearing her gaze away from the astounding view of the treetops snatching the fire from the sunset between their swaying leaf-covered palms. Leaves waving and moving in a way that made her think they may be clapping and cheering her on as she made her way across the floor.

 

Reaching out with open palms, she grabs a pan, a stainless steel bowl, spoons, a measuring cup, vegetables and eggs to start preparing lunch. While outside, the world seems to have been transported back in time by the almost vintage picturesque landscape the rapidly vanishing sun rays are casting on it. Filling a kettle with water and a pan with olive oil and placing them on a warming stove as she washes the asparagus with cool water before chopping the ends off, and adding them into the hot pan before adding a pinch of salt in.

 

Four broken shells of eggs loiter the counter next to a tablespoon still glistening from the freshly squeezed lemon juice she had measure it with. While a cup that's filled to the middle with liquid melted unsalted butter lays glistening by the side; two containers labeled cayenne and salt besides it.

 

As she adds the egg yolks and the lemon juice to the stainless steel bowl, she vigorously starts to whisk. Her face turning away from the gas stove to gaze at the empty paper application she hastily laid on the counter beside the wooden cutting board she bought and which is still covered with the asparagus' cut ends.

 

It is an application for King's Place. A coffee shop down the street she now lives on, and where she had ventured inside in a fit of curiosity. Petra thinks of the bare, crystal window panes that had allow the sunlight to filter through and cast a atmosphere of sereneness between each book aisle as she continues to whisk the mixture. She recalls the seven sets of tables and chairs placed in front of the window panes, and the counter from where beverages and pastries could be bought.

 

Petra remembers the well-placed chalkboard advertising sales as well as a simple menu and prices as she puts the bowl down and takes out a saucepan from one of the cabinet underneath the counter, and proceeds to add the now barely simmering water within. Carefully, she puts down the saucepan before lifting the steel bowl over it, while making sure that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl as she does so. 

As she slowly drizzles in the melted butter while continuing to whisk, she thinks about how stricken she had become that it was not the sense of comfort she has always been able to find within books that grasped her immediate attention, but the arch of a boy's knee as he had knelt down to accommodate new book copies to fill the empty spots from where the old ones had been taken out and bought. The curve of his ear where his ink black margins of hair were slightly parted to reveal a small silver stud that went along well with the almost-clean cut underside his hair, and the slope of his nose above a mouth set in a grim line.

 

No, what had stricken her, she realizes, was the poignant ache that rose within her chest and had almost compelled her to take a step forward in the boy's direction, only to see him being whisked away by his own duties as he stood to his full posture and walked away without noticing the strange, wide-eyed girl observing him through confused eyes.

 

Petra now removes the saucepan from the heat, adds in a pinch of cayenne and salt, and covers it up before placing inside the oven to let the warmness of it remain for longer when she is forced away from her memories as the sound of loud knocks echoing within her walls.

 

"Coming!" She yells before turning the stove off and wiping her hands on her apron on her way towards the door. The amber locks that have been barely holding onto the pins falling in a heap as Petra absentmindedly runs a hand through her locks.

 

It is with cheeks flushed from the heat of the stove, and a face framed by wispy strands of hair the color autumn leaves that she opens her door. Hazel eyes instantly locking on unfamiliar steel ones.

 

"Hanji told me to come by," the boy says as form of explanation to his unexpected visit. His baritone voice surprising her almost as much as the sight of him standing before her after she had spent the last few minutes being distracted by the profile of him she had seen at the bookstore.

 

Petra recognizes the lines of his neck and the undeniable stiffness of his posture. Shoulders set in a way that makes it seem as if his carrying a heavy burden on them. She allows her eyes to roam over the untucked white collar shirt, jean clad legs, and booted feet before lifting her gaze again to meet unchanged gray eyes.

 

"Y- yes," she hurriedly says as she realizes they have stayed in the same position for more than a minute.

 

"Come in," she adds. Motioning with her hand for him to do so, while holding the door with her other one.

 

His footstep land silently across the floor as he enters her apartment with the confident air of someone who knows what he'd find within every crook of the apartment. 

 

"You can take a seat anywhere," she says pulling a hair tie from her wrist to twist her unruly hair upwards into a low bun before continuing on, "I'm sorry I can only offer you coffee or water to drink since I've only just moved in-."

 

"Shut up," he rudely interrupts.

 

Petra's startled eyes rise to meet his. Noticing for the first time the grim line of his mouth, and the frown marring his face.

 

"I'm not here to socialize," he says while taking a threatening step towards the smaller woman, "I'm here because Hanji told me I needed to come by to personality inform you of the rules of this apartment complex."

 

Petra's only response is her rapidly blinking eyes as confusion swims within twin pools of amber.

 

"Rules?" She finally manages to ask as the boy's posture only continues to stiffen.

 

"Are you deaf?" He says sarcastically before replying with an undercurrent of coldness in his low voice, "yes, rules. Rules you will uphold or else be kicked out."

 

Confusion falls under a current of anger as his words cut through the momentary fog his presence stirred up in her mind.

 

"If that's true then why didn't Hanji inform me of them herself?" Petra asks with her hands rising to land firmly on her hips and eyebrows curling upwards at the absurdity of his words.

 

"Because she's too busy shitting her pants over a new toy to be bothered," he calms answers back.

 

Her brows furrow at his response, "what new toy?"

 

He lets out a disappointed sigh before saying, "Nothing you need to know, just remember these three rules and you can live here for as long as you continue to follow them-."

 

"Who are you?" She interrupts after the sudden mad urge to yell at him erupts only to be quench as the knowledge that she does not even know his name sets in.

 

"Quit interrupting," he admonishes, "just listen and remember-"

 

"But, who are you?"

 

"For fuck's sake, shut up and listen," he reprimands harshly.

 

Petra's mouth tightens but she holds on to her anger as he rudely continues on without waiting for a reply.

 

"Rule number one, clean after yourself," he says with contempt, "the trash man comes every Thursday morningand I expect for your shit to be there by that time."

 

Petra wants to part her lips and curse at the insolence of the boy before her. But as if sensing this, he quickly goes on.

 

"Rule number two, you don't speak to me about unimportant things. I do not give a damn about your personal life, so do not treat me as a therapist."

 

She can only blink at the curses flying off his mouth.

 

"And rule number three: I will never be interested in someone like you, so do not play coy games with me." He says briskly. Cold eyes reflecting nothing of what he feels inside, and is during that brief instance that she realizes the resemblance between their cool surface to that of an arctic lake.

 

"Oi, don't space out!" The boy suddenly calls out when she fails to reply to any of the rules he has presented her with.

 

Enraged eyes meet his own cold ones.

 

"What?" She rudely demands, "have anything else to add to your ridiculous rules?"

 

The lines on his face grow menacingly dark as he lowers his head and leans in towards her. Brusquely grabbing her shoulders and talking before she can even draw breath, "if you don't want to follow any of those rules, go ahead. Be my guest. But do not complain about the order of evict that will undoubtedly be posted on your door the second you step out of line."

 

He was close enough for her to see the twin moles on the tip of his nose, and feel the warmness of every breath he exhaled.

 

"What do you want?" She finally asks defiantly under his steel gaze, "for me to clean, take out my trash and leave you alone? Is that all?" she says with her defiant tone morphing to one of mock as she parts her lips and goes on, "Well, don't worry about it because those are things I am going to do regardless of your rules."

 

It is by the disdain she allows to seep into the word 'rules' that the Iron Curtain in his eyes lifts to allow his suppressed emotions flow through.

 

"Listen here," he says in a low tone that betrays the undercurrent of anger below his calm voice, "I'm not here to exchange cooking stories or insults; I'm here because Hanji told me I had to come and tell you the rules-."

 

"You already said that," she interrupts for the sole reason of ticking him off. Feeling strangely like the men who appear on the Discovery Channel and idiotically poke wild animals with sticks until they snap and bite their limbs off.

 

Gulping almost audibly, she takes half a step backwards realizing the error of her words, but only makes it away an inch before the hard contours of his body are being pressed against her soft flesh. Her hands instantly curling into fists as his own travel down from her shoulders to her elbows to hold her firmly in place.

 

The hard plane of his jaw weighting heavily on her neck as he calmly states in her ear, "do not play games with me."

 

Petra squirms under his body from the silent threat hidden behind his placid words.

 

"Let go," she pleas, trying and failing to fight against his unbreakable hold.

 

"Not until you understand," he says. Uncaring about the intimate position their pressed bodies form. Nor caring about the hard edges of Petra's elbows against his calloused hands.

 

"Let go," she says again. Pushing and pulling her body weight against his in a valiant attempt at forcing his hands away. Desperation surging through her blood after each failing tug.

 

"Have you learned your lesson?"

 

"Shut up and let go of me!" Petra yells before wildly throwing her head against his own. She feels more than hears his grunt of pain as her forehead briskly connects against his chin.

 

"Shit," he groans, momentarily stun.

 

Huffing, she pulls her arms free and walks backwards until her back hits the brick wall besides her front door.

 

"Leave," she orders. All sense of warmth in her voice fading under the cool shade of refrained anger.

 

His right arm rises to faintly touch his chin, while his tousled inky strands of hair fall over his face. Leaving the slightest of space between them where the parting in his hairline lays.

 

"Fine," he says.

 

Walking with steady feet towards the door besides her, and opening it without sparing the woman a glance.

 

"Just remember what I said," he utters before passing through the door's threshold and closing it firmly behind him.

 

"Insufferable jerk," Petra mumbles when he leaves. Her body going limp and sliding ungracefully down the brick wall.

 

"Stupid," she continues to mumble, "stupid, stupid, stupid."

 

Petra is still half-whispering about what an idiot the bookstore boy is when different knocks start beating against her door.

 

By the softer, yet quick continuous knocks, she is able to assure her suddenly-rapidly beating heart that no, it is not that boy again.

 

"Petra!" Hanji's enthusiastic voice cuts through the wooden door and straight into the room as Petra hurries to get up and walk on weak knees to twist the knob.

 

"Yes, Hanji?" She asks. Opening the door wide with a small smile plaster on her face. A smile that immediately vanishing upon noticing the shorter person next to the brunette. Noticing the now-familiar tilt of his head, as well as the sea-shell curve of his pearly ear.

 

"I want to firmly introduce you to one of your new neighbors, Levi!" Hanji happily exclaims. Oblivious to the boy's scowl and Petra's own less-than-friendly body language.

 

The silence that meets her loud introduction leaves a heavy atmosphere that falls weak against Hanji's perpetually state of excitement.

 

"Levi lives in the apartment next to yours," she says, pointing a thumb to her right and almost jabbing her nail into the boy- no, Levi's eye, "so if you need any help working any of the appliances inside your apartment you can go next door and ask him for help."

 

Petra's lips press together against the sudden onslaught of laughter that rise unbidden within her.

 

"Yeah, sure," she manages to say before biting her lip to hold the laugh that desperately wants to escape. The sarcasm in her words going unnoticed by Hanji, but not unheard by Levi, whose scowl grows fiercer.

 

"He will be happy to help," Hanji assures her before landing a strong pat on his back, "right, Levi?"

 

"Che," he only replies. Irises focusing on some object inside her apartment.

 

Petra allows her lips to form a smile at the sight of Levi being complaint, "I will be sure to ask for his help, don't worry."

 

Levi's eyes travel upwards to meet amber orbs as Hanji happily says, "Great!"

 

'It's too much,' she thinks as she gazes at Levi's angry face and Hanji's own bright, open one, and loses the restraint she has been placing on her laughter.

 

Laughter that bubbles up and escapes her parted lips. Cascading downwards like the sound of loud bells, but with the sweetness of honey.

 

Petra's arms encase her aching stomach as her eyes close, and she surrenders entirely to the first heartfelt laugh she has utter in months.

 

"Petra?" Hanji asks, and the fact that it is the first time Petra has heard the loud woman sound hesitant about anything makes her laugh harder.

 

"I'm- I'm sorry," Petra says between laughs. Running a forefinger below her right eye to check for any escaping tears.

 

"Are you alright?" Hanji says, taking a step forward to scrutinize her face through glass covered eyes.

 

"I'm fine," Petra happily assures, walking backwards to allow her guests to enter through. She feels more than sees Levi's gaze on her as she turns around and heads inside to the kitchen.

 

"Would you like some asparagus and hollandaise sauce?" Petra asks. Opening the oven to take out the still warm sauce, while taking a white plate off a shelf to place besides the stove where crunchy the asparagus lay inside the pan, and sparing a glance to her guests.

 

"Yes, thank you," Hanji says with an almost drooling expression. A complete contrast to Levi's disgusted one.

 

"Did you even wash the asparagus?" He rudely remarks as he takes in the mess Petra has created within the small space of a previously stainless kitchen. Instead of replying, she turns her back to him once more and begins to arrange the food.

 

"Levi!" Hanji admonishes. Tearing her eyes away from the sight of perfectly crisp salty asparagus landing on a plate as Petra carefully picks them out with a fork.

 

"Yes, I did," Petra answers without turning her head. Pulling a drawer out and reaching inside for a clean spoon to use to shower the hollandaise sauce on the asparagus.

 

"I'm sorry, but I only have a bottle of red wine, water and coffee to offer you to drink," she apologizes as she stands on her toes to reach the shelf where her glasses are placed and grabbing two of them. Ignoring Levi's glare on her back.

 

"That's fine," Hanji says smiling as she walks towards the fridge and brings down the wine bottle effortlessly, "this is more than fine, actually, but Levi would prefer the bitter taste of coffee than this sweet nectar of life."

 

"Could you bring it with you while I take the plate of asparagus over to the dinner table?" Petra says with a laugh as she picks up the plate of food. Bypassing Levi as she heads into the dining room without sparing him a glance.

 

"Sure thing," Hanji answers as she follows her. A brooding Levi walking in at a much slower pace, and pulling out the unoccupied chair across from Petra's to fall gracefully onto it.

 

"Thank you for lunch," Hanji says thankfully. Taking out a set of keys from her pants' pockets to cork the bottle open with a twist of her wrist.

 

"You're welcome," Petra says. Amber eyes traveling from Hanji's hands reaching for a asparagus drenched with hollandaise sauce, and to spare a gaze on Levi's discontent face. A sudden urge to reach out and dishevel his dark locks making her fingertips itch; wondering if his inky strands would be as soft and silky as they look despite the scowl marring his forehead.

 

"Dig in!" She says as she gets up once more and heads back into the kitchen, "I'll go place the kettle on the stove."

 

The sound of a chair scraping the floor, and Hanji's happy sighs after devouring an entire asparagus in one bite are the only responses for her words.

 

It's not until Petra is adding cool water into the kettle that she looks up, and directly meets a pair of questioning gray eyes.

 

"What are you doing?" Levi asks. Bringing his arms up to fold them across his chest. An action meant to be menacing, but one that only springs mild annoyance within her.

 

"What do you think I'm doing?" Petra sarcastically answers, her right arm stretching upwards to grab the coffee tin.

 

"I didn't ask for any," he states plainly. Voice void of any of the irritation present in his body.

 

"Too bad."

 

The kettle whistles, putting an end to the oppressing silence she founds herself put into by the dark glare she can feel on her back.

 

Casually reaching for one of the ceramic mugs, and adding a heavy spoonful of crushed coffee beans with one of the spare spoons she'd place on the counter before.

 

"Here," Petra says as she pours the hot water into the mug and hands it over to Levi's still crossed arms, "get it."

 

"I already told you I didn't ask for any."

 

Petra's amber eyes narrow, "and I already told you that was too bad."

 

Levi's response is cut short as Hanji walks in. A large smile on her face despite the palpable tension in the room.

 

"I hope Levi is being his usual charming self," Hanji says as she walks further into the room. Eyes quickly glancing between the mug still held within Petra's hands and the annoyed posture of Levi.

 

Petra's previously narrow amber eyes grow warm again under an expectant Hanji and a moody Levi.

 

"He sure is," she says while smiling brightly, before thrusting the mug back towards him, "now take it!"

 

Petra can almost hear the gritting of his teeth when Hanji strongly pats his back in firm encouragement to do as asked.

 

"Fine," he utters darkly. Taking the hot mug from Petra's fingers and brushing the sensitive tips while doing so. Startled amber eyes rise and meet impassive steel ones whose only sign of surprise is the slight widening of his eyes.

 

"Well then," Hanji suddenly says in the same excited tone that is quickly becoming Petra's standard expectation for Hanji Zoe, "let's get back to lunch."

 

And with the flow of her words, the stunned moment between the ink-haired boy and the autumn-haired girl is cut. The remains of the subtle feeling of surprise escaping like dust into the air.

 

"Yeah," Petra says while smiling brightly once more, "let's."

 

* * *

 

The late afternoon casts shadows beside the assorted pieces of furniture, as does the light flickering from the overhead lamp above three bend heads. Hands and fingers posing in different position as each person eats away the simple empanadas Petra has prepared for dinner.

 

As she cuts a empanada in half before sinking a fork into the full, fried pastry, she glances up and takes in the way Hanji hastily chooses to discard her utensils -in the face of what she claims is the best empanada she has ever tasted- to pick up a whole one to eat it up in one bite. While a disgusted Levi scoffs at her manners and throws a napkin to her face; leaving an amused Petra to smile as she begins to cut her empanada up.

 

"Oi, close your damn mouth when you chew," Levi demands with a look of revulsion that turns the ends of his mouth downwards and crinkles his nose.

 

Words that are wasted, for Hanji is far too oblivious to the world in her current state of delicious joy.

 

"Mmmm!" Hanji hums happily as closes her eyes, lids pressed tightly together.

 

Petra can't help but let out a soft quiet laugh that ends when Levi's glaring eyes land on hers.

 

Letting out a soft sigh instead, Petra continues to slice her food while pretending not to notice the way Levi's slender fingers hold firmly his fork and knife. Or the way his elbows remain at his sides without touching the table, while his forearms move as his hands glide across the food with his knife and rise as he lifts his fork upwards towards his parted lips.

 

"Stop ogling," he casually utters.

 

"I'm not!" Petra argues loudly.

 

"Sure, you're not ogling and also don't have a job application for Hanji's cafe on your kitchen counter," he says placidly before reaching for his coffee mug and bringing it to his lips.

 

"What?" Hanji suddenly blurts out. Brown eyes wide behind her goggles as she puts her third empanada down before placing both hands on the table. Petra's eyes widen over Hanji's strong reaction to Levi's words, just as his eyes widen in horror at the sight of the greasy streaks marking the space where Hanji's palms landed on.

 

"Yes?" Petra meekly asks with a cautioning gaze.

 

"You're planning on applying at my cafe?" Hanji demands.

 

Petra gulps inaudibly, "maybe?"

 

She's expecting from Hanji's affronted look for her to command her to throw the still-empty application to the trash and gather her spare belongings, but what she's not expecting is the delighted smile that erupts across her features instead.

 

"Don't even bother to turn in that application," Hanji tells her, lifting her hands to wave them offhandedly around her, "you're hired!"

 

By the blank look on Levi's face, Petra can tell he knew Hanji would hire her as soon as she heard it was her that was applying. However, that does nothing to quell to wave of nerves that are suddenly soaring within her stomach.

 

"Just like that?" Petra asks, because it can not be that simple.

 

"Yes," Hanji assures her, not noting the paleness of Petra's face or the way her hands are clutching her eating utensils like their the last remains of sanity she can hold onto.

 

"What would you make her do?" Asks Levi looking from above the rim of his coffee mug with calculating eyes at Petra's strange reaction to the news.

 

"The basics, of course," Hanji answers him. Reaching towards her pants' pockets and taking out a folded piece of paper that might have been a receipt at one point, but was now being used to make a list. "Levi, a pen."

 

Sighing tiredly, he sets the mug down and untucks the black ink pen from the breast pocket Petra had failed to noticed before. Clicking the top of it to let the pointed end stick out before placing it on Hanji's ready hand.

 

"First, I will have to teach you the ropes of King's Place-" Hanji mutters before Levi bluntly interrupts.

 

"King's Place has as many ropes to learn as the mechanism of a toddler's toy."

 

Undeterred, Hanji plows on, "working the cashiers, and studying the cafe's menu as well as the book aisles' arrangements. Second, I will ask you to shadow one of the older employees while working with costumers so you can learn from the way they interact. And thirdly, I will have to ask for you Social Security number and proof of credentials. You know, normal procedure."

 

Petra did know, but that didn't sooth away the worry line between her brows.

 

Hanji took her worrying face as a question about her pay, "we'd have to figure out a work schedule for you, but once that's done you'd be out into the payroll system and get paid every fifteen days."

 

"The pay is nothing extravagant though, so don't expect much," adds Levi in what Petra assumes is his bastardize way of being helpful.

 

Sighing resolutely, Petra forces her uncertainly away and sets her shoulders. Opening her mouth to firmly state that yes, she would come work at Hanji's cafe, otherwise known as King's Place.

 

"Of course you will," Levi mutters under his breath. Left elbow coming to rest on the table as he leans forward in his seat. "After all, you wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to openly ogle me."

 

He says this with such utter seriousness that whatever scraps of determination Petra managed to scoop up before now desert her. Leaving her a heap of flushed cheeks and with an embarrassment she can feel to her bones.

 

"I was not ogling you!"

 

"Stop being so excited about it," he says distastefully.

 

Petra didn't think it was possible for her face to flame even brighter, but his next words disrupt that notion.

 

"Che, sounding like you're about to piss your pants."

 

She parts her lips, only to close them unceremoniously a second later and veering her gaze from Levi's steady gaze to the grease-streaked table.

 

Rapturous laughter fills the dining room as Hanji's head falls back onto the chair's backrest.

 

"I'm so glad you two are getting along so well already," she gasps out between laughter fits. The sight of Petra's wide, unbelieving eyes and Levi's stiff shoulders sending her back into a fit of giggles.

 

"If this is supposed to be us getting along," Petra mutters herself yet loud enough to carry to the person across from her, "then I'm not sure I want to know what it would be like if we were at odds."

 

"Hn," Levi grunts in what she takes to be his impolite way of agreeing.

 

"Petra," Hanji finally says after the last of her laughter has left her mouth and has righted herself on the chair, but still clutching her stomach between her hands and with animated eyes that are trained on hers, "can you go to King's Place at seven in the morning tomorrow?"

 

"Sure," she answers, the plain disbelief over Hanji's past words still reflecting in her tone and gaze.

 

"Great," Hanji readily says, "just wear whatever you find comfortable; it's just a practice day after all."

 

"She means for you to wear a pair of proper work-for pants and shirt. No shoes that show your toes, either," Levi adds in the same bastardize helpful tone as before.

 

"You're one to talk," Hanji calls back, lifting her brows in mock surprise, "why Levi, isn't what you're currently wearing what you wore to work today?"

 

Narrow steel eyes glare from brown eyes to amber ones before he bows down his head a millimeter to take in what Petra is wearing, "as long as you don't show up wearing that, it'd be fine I suppose."

 

"I've been cooking and cleaning all day," Petra darkly mutters, "don't be an ass."

 

"Asking for him to not be rude its what I've been doing since I met him when we were fifteen," Hanji says sympathetically, eyes warm as she leans away from the table and balances on the chair's back legs.

 

"Must have been a pain," Petra says after letting a long-suffering sigh escape her lips.

 

"Still is," Hanji agrees with a long sigh of her own.

 

"Oi," Levi cuts in while leaning further onto the table, "I'm right here you little shits."

 

Hanji scoffs, "hear that, Petra? He's calling  _us_  little."

 

"Imagine leading a life from such a short perspective as his," Petra happily adds, despite the fact that Levi's angry glare is now so focused on her face she could almost feel the sea of anger coming off him in waves.

 

"I guess you can call that living a half-life," Hanji says before pressing her lips tightly together to rein in the new found laughter shaking her frame. The chair's legs scraping against the wooden floor as Hanji rightly sits herself once again.

 

It's Petra's turn to scoff, "living life through a Teletubbie's point-of-view."

 

"Feeling like a giant only when surrounded by a bunch of toddlers."

 

"Only being able to dress as one of Snow White's seven elves for Halloween."

 

"And the grouchy one at that."

 

"All he'd have to do is put on a pair fake pointy ears, and wuala, instant costume complete!"

 

Their combined laughter rise and echo within the apartment's walls until a firm hand grasps the hair from the back of their heads and pulls down. Hard.

 

"Oi," Levi says, voice cold with venom, "did I not state that I am right here?"

 

The hand grasping Petra's hair is unyielding under the soft pads of her fingertips, but despite the pain she feels escalating from that one point, she notes that the pain Levi is inflicting is not nearly as hard as his tone implied.

 

It's as if his controlling the amount of strength he uses to let the pain not grow to something she would not be able to handle. Restraining himself while curling his fingers tightly around her amber locks, yet not hurting her past the initial hard yank he'd inflicted.

 

"Fine, fine!" Hanji calls out, using her hands to pull the locks of her hair Levi has in his grasp.

 

"We apologize," Petra hastily adds. Because while his hands may not be pulling her hair numbly hard, his hold was still painful.

 

"Hn," he spats before letting his fingers loose their hold, and walks back towards his waiting chair.

 

After letting out a long, relived sigh that rapidly earns her another dark glare, Hanji promptly says with unmasked relief, "it has definitely been a while since he's lost his temper this fast."

 

Petra bites her lower lip against the short-fuse comment she almost utters before remembering that any sentence that includes the word 'short' and his own name would undoubtedly set him off again.

 

Almost as if sensing this, Levi's hard gaze focuses on her face once more.

 

"Alright," Hanji says before picking up the remains of her last empanada with her bare fingers and carelessly placing it before her mouth, "the food and drinks have been absolutely delicious," and here she pauses to take the last final bite before continuing, "but we must leave now."

 

The sky outside has darken considerably since lunch had turned into dinner. The muted light of the setting,afternoon sun casting shadows by her apartment's furniture where they had not been chased away by the lamps' glow that had been flickered on since their simple get-to-know had changed into a long visit. Conversations flowing back and forth across the table in various forms of banter as well as inquiries, but now that she has a minute to glance around once more she's astounded to find that is almost nine when the last time she'd checked the clock hanging above the TV it had been barely past four.

 

"Yeah, you're probably right," Petra says, nodding her head as she thinks of all the chores she has to finish before she can head to bed.

 

Sighing with the exhaustion of a thousand men, Levi places a hand on the table and the other one on the top of the chair's backrest as he rises to his full posture, and silently begins to pick up the dirty set of dishes and empty cups and mugs.

 

"I can clean that," Petra admonishes as she hastily stands up only to fall back down as her legs cramp under her.

 

"I can, too," Levi placidly states before walking into the kitchen to deposit of the dirty plates and cups into the sink and turning the water on. The sound of him rumbling around in search of her sponge and dish washing soap reaching the ears of both females who've been left behind.

 

"Don't take it personally," Hanji says kindly as she tears a napkin from the roll Petra had set on the table before, "he's just very meticulous when it comes to cleaning after himself," she explains as she cleans away the grease strikes she had previously marred on the table.

 

"He's washing the dishes for me," Petra says calmly as she allows herself a moment of relaxation, and leans back on her chair while folding her hands over her stomach, "that's nothing to take offense of."

 

Hanji gives her what Petra is quickly learning to be her most genuine smile before contentedly murmuring, "if we still had our wine glasses out, I would toast to that."

 

"And then you'd show up to work tomorrow with a ragging hangover," Levi says from the kitchen where Hanji's alcoholic proposal managed to reach him.

 

"And then I'd have to learn to work the cashier from someone stumbling over their own feet," Petra states with mock disapproval.

 

"Che," Levi objects, "more like having to learn from someone who'd click the wrong keys trying to open the damn thing, only to end up angrily staring at the machine until the frighten costumer decides to leave their change behind in exchange of continuing to live."

 

Petra's soft giggles grow to a louder laughter at Hanji's almost sheepish face.

 

"That was one time!"

 

"Try five."

 

"You've gone to work hungover five times?" Petra says with her eyebrows lifted in surprise.

 

"No, she's gone to work hungover four times, but I'm also counting the once-in-a-lifetime time she showed up with a mere hour of sleep and still under the effects of alcohol," Levi calls back from the kitchen before turning the water off, only for it to be turned on once more.

 

"Those were difficult times," Hanji grumbles with brows furrowed.

 

"Yes," Levi says as he turns off the water, "the lost of a 10,100 year old body greatly affects the world."

 

"It does!" Hanji yells as she quickly rises; the sheepish look from before replaced by a fiery, vibrant one.

 

"It's just bones," Levi argues from within the kitchen where sounds of a damp towel wiping the counters can be distinctly heard.

 

"But those were 10 thousand years old! Ten thousand! Years! Old!"

 

"I heard you the first time," he replies and while his voice still possesses the same passiveness quality as before, Petra can tell by the hard undercurrent edge to his words that he's growing tired of a conversation they'd undoubtedly had before.

 

"All of those person's characteristics wiped away under the careless hands of those inexperienced anthropologists," Hanji utters in a broken voice that is one step away from being a sob.

 

"Yeah, yeah," Levi says as he appears at the kitchen's threshold with the damp towel still in hand, "bones that turned into dust the moment a person's breath touched them."

 

"They sneezed on them!"

 

"Hn," he says agreeably before throwing the towel on Hanji's face, "so they did."

 

Hanji's right hand shoots up and grabs the wet towel away from her face, "those bones could of told us how people used to live 10 thousand years ago," she continues completely undeterred.

 

"You can look that up online," Levi readily replies as he walks forward and snatches the towel away from Hanji's hand to thoroughly clean away her sloppy attempt at cleaning away the grease with a simple napkin.

 

"The diseases they could of had!"

 

"Diseases that'd forced us to mutate in order to avoid having them."

 

Pacing the short distance between the dining room and front room, Hanji rambles on, "all of the history those remains could have uncovered!"

 

"History that mustn't have been that important for it to just turn into dust."

 

But it was as if Levi's comments went into one ear and out the other, for Hanji didn't let any of his pessimistic words affect her in the slightest, "think of all that human's lifestyle we could of gotten acquaintance with."

 

"I would not choose to be acquaintance with a sack of bones," Levi says, stepping back from the now spotless table before taking the ragged towel back into the kitchen to be possibly deposited on the sink.

 

"Bones!" Hanji calls out happily.

 

"I stand corrected," Levi states as he steps back inside the dining room to arrange his and Hanji's chairs back into their proper place, "I meant a sack of dust."

 

Muttering obscenities under her breath as Levi's words clicked inside her head, Hanji closes her eyes as if forcing herself to let it go before opening them again and walking towards the chair where Petra is still sitting on.

 

"We really must leave now," Hanji says as she places her hands on Petra's shoulders, "remember to stop by King's Place in the morning for the grand tour."

 

"Grand tour?" Levi scoffs, "that place is about as grand as a ginger house."

 

Petra and Hanji both ignore him.

 

"I will," Petra answers while smiling brightly at Hanji as she stands up, this time on more steady legs, and walks them to the front door, "I'll take all of the required paperwork and dress appropriately."

 

"Anything is better than that dirty old apron," Levi mutters, opening the door and stepping through without a parting word.

 

"Ignore him," Hanji says as she, too, steps through the door but turns back to quickly add, "he's just grumpy because he has a new neighbor who's likely to stick around."

 

Petra's amber eyes grow wide, "should I ask what happened to the old tenants?"

 

"Nothing you can't handle, I promise," Hanji happily assures before waving goodbye and reminding her to lock her door and windows before she heads to bed.

 

Closing the front door once again, Petra looks around her orderly apartment to the spotless kitchen before turning off the few lamps she had turned on during dinner, and walking through the bead curtain separating the front room from her bedroom and adjacent restroom.

 

Yawning as she turns the shower on, and steps back into her bedroom to grab her faded Legion shirt, a pair of black underwear, and a pair of matching black shorts.

 

The water is warm, but not scorching hot when she returns and quickly undresses to wash off the perspiration on her body with lavender soap, while washing away the food's odors from her hair with the $3 shampoo she'd bought earlier. The only sounds in her apartment that of the whining old pipes and the water drops falling against her skin and the floor.

 

Yawning, for longer this time, as she takes a large white towel off the counter and begins to dress. Hastily, she brushes her short amber locks while looking through bleary eyes at her tired reflection and grabing her toothbrush. Grumbling to herself as she brushes her teeth before turning the light off in the restroom and her bedroom, and tucking herself under her mother's quilt. Petra falls asleep under the warmth provided by the worn cotton blanket, and the fading thoughts of a brooding boy and a long-lost bus stop.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so very afraid of posting this but there it is now


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I always wished I was an orphan. Most of my favorite characters are. I think your lives are more special." -Moonrise Kingdom

"The morning felt like a mixing bowl just waiting for its ingredients; there was a sense of possibility to it, a promise of something more to come." -Jennifer E. Smith, This Is What Happy Looks Like

The Story So Far

Chapter Three

* * *

Under the fleeting rays of the rising sun that filter through the open-curtain window by her head, Petra stirs as she begins to wake up. Mumbling incoherent words while absentmindedly reaching out with a hand to grasp the curtain and pull it completely shut. Feeling the softness of the bed sheets under her bare stomach where her Legion shirt rolled up during the night, and the worn cotton texture of her mother's quilt against her legs as she stretches and curls her toes.

A quick look out her window reveals the soft-sunlit yellow leaves from the various trees populating the surrounding area of the apartment-complex, as well as the gray expanse of a cloudless sky.

Reaching out with new found motivation, Petra opens the curtain wider instead of pulling it close as she'd previously wanted, to better gaze at the lemon and clementine trees that mark stretches within the sidewalk and the grass that threatens to conquer the concrete in places while laying completely at peace in others. Looking through soft amber eyes at the olive tree directly outside her window, and the fading shade of green of its leaves. Hanji's apartment complex is partially hidden by a grove of lemon, clementine, and olive trees, which had inevitably been one of her reasons for renting the small apartment located inside brick walls, stone columns and stairs without attempting to check out any others.

It is a place that offers unadulterated peace, and one that had tug at her heart the moment she'd caught sight of the curved stones that constructs the apartment-complex's entry way as well as its columns. Petra had felt as if a spell had been placed on her the moment she'd knelt down on a whim to touch the strange smoothness of those rocks, before she had impulsively walked in and met the exuberant Hanji Zoe.

And now Petra lays on a mattress that is not her own, under the same quilt that had warmed her since she'd been born. Closing her eyes, she presses her body closer to the warm sheets and pillows as sleep's temping fingers beckon her.

Three punctuate loud knocks against her front door snap her out of her sleepy musings, followed by an annoyed grunt that can only belong to one person. Uncovering her legs to climb out of bed with as much grace as a sloth, Petra commands her still-drowsy mind to clear up as her bare feet fall one after another on the hard wood floor.

"What?" Petra asks groggily as she opens her door to the brooding boy. Taking in the sight of his wet black locks and the gleaming collarbone she can see between the collar of his button-up shirt where the top button has been left open.

"It's six thirty," Levi simply informs her while blinking lazily as he does so.

Tilting her head to the side she bemusedly asks, "and?"

"And you're a bigger idiot than I originally thought," he answers condescendingly. Impassive face remaining in place despite the angry flush traveling up Petra's neck.

"Are you bothering me so early in the morning just for the sake of insulting me?" She says with growing irritation. Hands curling into fists instinctively as her brows furrow over demanding amber eyes.

Without responding, Levi turns his head upwards in the general gesture of someone asking a higher power for help. His shaved jaw lowering down as his shoulders sag and he exhales a deep, frustrated sigh.

"I'm not here to point out your obvious flaws," Levi begins with as much care as someone wiping clean the soles of their shoes, "I'm here because you told Hanji you'd be at King's Place by seven this morning, and while I am not looking forward to having you as a coworker -seeing what an airhead you are- Hanji is."

"Hanji," she mumbles before softly muttering, "King's Place... Seven... Co-work-!" Suddenly stopping her rambling as the words click together inside her mind and she remembers that she now has a job. A job she would be late to if she remains standing, wide-eyed before a very uninterested Levi.

"There you go," he says with only the faintest of boredom coloring his voice as Petra hastily begins walking back into her bedroom and crossing straight into her bathroom in record speed.

"Damn it, Levi!" Petra yells from her spot by the shower curtain as she turns the water on, her annoyed voice carrying over the sound of the complaining water pipes and to the front room where she assumes he would be at, "you could have woken me up earlier!"

"I'm not your alarm clock," is the only reply she gets as she quickly undresses before jumping under the shower head and scrubbing away.

"You're a pest!" She calls back aggressively at the same time she pours a heavy dose of shampoo on her head and accidentally allows a drop to land on her eye. Biting back a curse, she hisses and turns her head upwards in an attempt at making the running water clear away the sharp sting of soap.

"A pest that should of gone straight to work without telling you anything," she hears him say. Far too close for his voice to be carrying from the front room into her bathroom.

Hands reaching out to turn off the water and grabbing one of the white towels she had previously placed on the bathroom's counter, Petra starts mumbling a string of obscenities. Noting with a fierce scowl her lack of clean clothes inside the bathroom.

"I can see how you'd charm your way right into our costumers' hearts with such vocabulary," Petra hears Levi say from just outside the bathroom's door; letting out an startled yelp at the sudden close proximity of his voice.

"What the hell are you doing in my room?" She angrily asks while clutching the towel between her hands. Rivulets running down her bare arms from the spots where the drenched locks of her hair lay plaster on her naked shoulders.

"You were taking too long," he explains with no care in his voice, "I thought you were constipated."

"Cons-" she begins before realizing she now probably only has fifteen minutes to get ready and no clothes to change into.

"Get out!" Petra orders, picking up her brush to tame her wet locks into submission just as the sound of a deep sigh followed by the clicking of the curtain's beads reach her ears.

After drying herself, changing into a fresh pair of underwear, and putting on a pair of jeans and a white button up under a black blazer, she walks back towards the bed and kneels down. Grabbing the old suitcase where her clothing had been packed and opening the lid to find the documents Hanji had asked for the night before; then placing them inside one of the vanilla folders her father had tucked inside the suitcase from back when he'd been alive and well enough to travel with her.

Petra stands up once more and hurriedly puts on a pair of clean socks and worn shoes before stepping out of her room and back into the front room where Levi is waiting for her. Right arm placed over the heated table while his forefinger impatiently taps on the wooden surface.

"Are you finally done?" He asks without stopping his insistent tapping nor changing the impassive look on his face.

After a quick glance at her kitchen, she nods. Teeth biting the flesh of her bottom lip as she prays to be able to hold onto her hunger until lunch break.

"Good," Levi says as he places both arms on the table and stands up, "we should get going. Hanji's probably sleep-deprive from her excitement."

"Excitement?" Petra asks, eyebrows raised as she grabs the apartment key from the table and begins walking towards the front door.

"Hn," he grunts in a way she's beginning to understand is his way of agreeing to something being said.

"About what?" Petra continues if only to see if she can manage to pull a full conversation out of the stoic boy. Hand posed over the knob as she locks it and gestures for him to walk out before her.

"Hanji doesn't need a reason to be excited," he says while passing her on his way out, "but if you must know, she's excited because she gets to employ her newest tenant and the girl whose cooking is capable of leaving her speechless. At least for more than one minute."

"Cooking is not hard though," Petra begins as she closes the door behind her, "you simply follow some steps and add whatever spice you think will work better with the ingredients."

"Try explaining that to Hanji," he mutters, walking down the hall to the space where the staircase are placed, "she would burn down the house if she tried following any recipe."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating?" She asks as she follows him down the stairs, her footsteps echoing around them as Levi's own feet fall silently against the wood.

"Visit Hanji's apartment sometime and see for yourself weather I'm exaggerating or not."

Petra doesn't reply, simply sighing to his back as they reach the stairs' landing and continue on to the front doors.

The walk to King's Place is short; a comfortable peace falling between them that is only punctuated by clumsy feet and a barking dog.

"Watch where you're going," Levi reproaches as he grabs her by the arms yet again after Petra accidentally stumbles over an overgrown tree's root. Palms open wide as she'd prepared to fall unceremoniously against his firm back, only for his hands to break her fall instead of his spine.

"I am," she argues unconvincing before righting herself again and pulling her arms brusquely away from Levi's fingers.

"Next time you feel the need to salute the pavement with your face I won't bother stopping you," he threatens, gray eyes narrowing as he glares and turns around. Briskly walking away from her much slower steps.

"Oi," he calls back to her after noticing the unusual silence between them, "hurry up, or do you want to arrive to work next week?"

Mumbling curses under her breath, Petra hurries after him. Amber eyes flashing like a dangerous force of nature and focusing solely on his steel-colored ones without noticing the overgrown roots residing on the pavement in front of her.

"Watch-" he begins but is immediately interrupted by Petra's body landing hard against his front.

"Damn it," she hears him mumble into the space above her left ear as the hand not holding the folder reaches up in search for leverage to push herself upwards with. Landing on a firm chest before traveling upwards to clutch tense shoulders.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Levi seethes. His own hands clutching the fabric of her blazer where they had landed on the small of her back. The force of his fingers threatening to pull the cloth apart.

"Pushing myself back up," Petra says as she pulls her face away where it'd landed on the hard plane of his collarbone. Forehead grazing his jaw and chin before pushing her right hard against his shoulders and lifting herself up.

"I told you to watch your fucking step," he continues to angrily spit out. Dark hair disheveled and cheeks almost flushed as his fingers unhook his shirt's cuffs and harshly roll the sleeves up to his elbows before standing up.

"I'm sorry," she says unapologetic. The anger in his steel eyes only fueling her own.

"The fuck you are," he snaps. His forehead furrowed into a fierce scowl, while his thin lips are pulled back into an almost snarl.

"I tripped, okay!" Petra exclaims, lifting her arms upwards as she does so.

"No, it's not okay," he snarls. And though he keeps his voice low, she can sense the barely restrained anger hiding behind its controlled edge, "you can't go around touching people and expecting that to be okay."

"I didn't mean to!" She yells at him. Vaguely registering the sudden silence that has befallen the stirring street they are on. How their voices now travel farther than their ears and into those belonging to the few people who're milling the waking street.

As if realizing the same thing, Levi suddenly grabs her roughly by the hand and pulls her behind him as he begins walking down the road; his words barely registering to her as he spoke them to space before him, "quit causing a fucking scene."

"Didn't you just go into a rampage because I touched you," she says incredulously. Ignoring his crude words to focus on the unexpectedly warmth of his hand, "and isn't that what you are doing to me now?"

Unsurprisingly, he doesn't answer her. Choosing instead to grip her hand more firmly in his before giving it one more tug as the entrance doors for King's Place come into view.

"Shut up," he says as he opens the front door and leads her inside. Not once stopping until he'd made it to the back door where a 'Personnel Only' sign is posted on. Opening it to reveal a distracted Hanji huddling behind a dark wood desk. Piles of paper littering the surface as she lifts her head and beams at them.

"Levi! Petra!" Hanji exclaims in delight as she rises from her chair and walks around her desk to meet them with open arms. Bypassing Levi's stoic form in favor of Petra's more relaxed one. Hopelessly oblivious to the new found animosity between the short dark-haired boy and the autumn-colored girl.

"You're just in time," Hanji continues on as she lets her arms fall back to her sides, "and holding hands, too!"

"Holding-" Petra stutters as heat begins to crawl a path up her neck, and damn it she does not want to blush because of the simple fact that Levi's calloused fingers are still holding hers.

Calmly, Levi lets her hand go, grunting with annoyance before placing both hands in his pockets and looking away from both of the women before him.

"It wasn't anything," Petra hurriedly assures. Right hand rising instinctively as she waves her palm around in front of her. "Really, he was just pulling me around to make sure we were in time."

"Hmm," Hanji mumbles unconvinced before sighing and turning her goggled-covered eyes to the stiff man ignoring both of them. Reading something in the set of his jaw and the faint flush on the back of his neck that Petra can not comprehend.

"Alright," Hanji suddenly exclaims with her usual vigor, hands pose in midair as she throws her head back and enthusiastically continues, "let's get started!"

Petra smiles and nods before raising the hand where the vanilla folder is clutched between her fingers, and moving forward to she present Hanji with the documents she had asked for the night prior.

"Good good," Hanji murmurs agreeably as she walks back to her chair behind the desk and absentmindedly gestures for her and Levi to take a seat on the spare chairs across from her.

Seconds turn into minutes as Hanji inputs Petra's information onto her computer while she explains in a strange mumble of words about the payroll she uses for King's Place. Hearing between soft words the amount of money she is to be paid hourly -$13.79- and how she's to be paid every week on Fridays.

"Sounds good," Petra says, relived when Hanji turns from the computer screen to give her a quick, but radiant smile.

"Great," Hanji says before turning back. Her strange rumble of words befalling the otherwise silent room whose peace is only broken by the pressing of computer keys, and the occasional annoyed sigh that escapes Levi's lips. His only sign that he's listening at all.

"Wait a second!" Hanji's loud words break the almost comfortable silence between the three persons within the room, "you graduated from St. Sina's?"

Petra's eyes widen at the sight of the usually-exuberant Hanji pointing a firm forefinger at her face and the serious gleam within her brown eyes, "yes," she answers hesitantly. Noticing from the corner of her eyes the sudden rigid stance of Levi's shoulders at the name of her old college.

"Then why are you applying at a mere coffee shop?" Asks Hanji is the most bewilder tone Petra has ever heard from anyone. Brown eyes wide open behind her goggles as she openly stares at her nervous face.

"Um," she begins without knowing fully well how to explain to them why she would want to work at a coffee shop doing simple things like making coffee and arranging books when she has a diploma from one of the most prestigious schools in the whole country, "it's all a very long story," she reluctantly mumbles praying to anyone who'd listen to her pleas, for Hanji's curiosity to be easily quell just this one time.

Petra should have known better than to pray for the impossible to happen.

"But why?" Hanji continuous on undeterred.

Feeling like an ant under a telescope she hastily begins to mumble a half-baked excuse, "it's all very complicated, though, I graduated almost half-a-year ago and decided to live at my old hometown afterwards. However, I didn't quite feel like I was helping much in that area, not with my degree anyway," she explains without looking at Hanji's face or turning to face Levi's calculating eyes, "so I decided to move here and work somewhere before decided on what to do."

All in all, she had efficiently revealed nothing to either of them, so she was fully prepared to endure more questions. What she was not prepared for though, was the sudden silence that met the end of her words.

"Hn," surprisingly it's Levi who speaks first, "we're not going to force you to tell us something you clearly don't want to."

"Actually," Hanji says sheepishly, "I probably would if Levi wasn't here to plummet me if I even dared to."

For the first time during the morning, Petra allows a small smirk to grace her lips as her shoulders sag under the unexpected lack of weight, and the sudden contentment that plagues her insides as she realizes that she truly does not have to explain her actions. A small mercy she negated herself many times before.

"Thank you," she says wholeheartedly, looking from Hanji's brown eyes to Levi's gray ones in turn. Letting them see the relief clearly reflected inside her amber orbs.

"Hn," Levi grunts as he turns his face away and crosses his arms in front of his chest. His stance no longer as rigid as it had been moments before.

Hanji's response is a genuine smile that stays throughout the remaining of the office visit despite the rude words of Levi or the narky retorts that fall from Petra's lips in return to his words. Their fight a comical sight for the goggle-wearing renter and coffee shop owner.

* * *

"And this is the aisle that runs from the letters H-R," Hanji happily explains as she walks down said aisle while faintly touching the book spines, "it would be pointless to teach you how to prepare our coffee since you already have experience working at a coffee shop, so for now I'd just show you around and let you get acclimated with the place."

The carpet under their feet muffles the sound of their falling feet as Hanji continues walking and showing Petra where certain books where stored at as well as the different aisles that housed the different book genres.

"We sell used books as well as new and offer our costumers membership cards in case they're addict readers who wouldn't mind saving some bucks on their books," Hanji says while sending Levi a mild warning look to the front of the store where he's sitting on a chair with his feet resting on a chair opposite his.

"Come on Levi," Hanji reproaches without any real heat behind her words, "you're supposed to work here remember?"

"Hn, I only work from eight to six," he replies as he leans backwards to fully stretch out his legs, "I'll start working as soon as my shift starts."

Sighing, Hanji mutters incoherent words under her breath before turning to face Petra once more and proceeds to show her behind the counter of the coffee station.

"These are our coffee machines, old models you probably already know how to use, and here's where we place whatever pastries the baking store down the street delivers to use each day," she says while gesturing to the empty shelves behind the crystal side of the counter, "you'd be working as a part-time barista and part-time book associate, but don't worry, the work-load is not going to fall on just your shoulders."

"Besides," Levi says from his spot on the chair, "it's not like Hanji is not known for abusing her power and making her minions to do the tougher jobs."

"Cleaning the restrooms and taking out the trash are not tough jobs," Hanji argues.

"And yet you sill make them do them."

"Them?" Petra asks before their argument continuous on.

"He's referring to the high school kids I usually employ for help during the summer, and to the ones who actually choose to stay throughout the year," Hanji explains. Taking a towel from a drawer beneath one of the coffee machines to wipe the already-spotless counter.

"In other words: Jean and Marco," Levi says. Parting his lips to let out a deep breath before standing.

Hanji lifts her head and smiles as the brooding boy makes his way to the back of the store. Returning with three green aprons on his arms.

"Here," he simply says as he tosses two of them towards the women behind the counter before putting his own on. Lowering his head to place the green collar-string above his head, and tying the loose strings behind his back twice.

"Thank you!" Hanji says as she, too, puts down the towel to put her apron on. The only difference between their green aprons being the name tag on the right corner.

"Yeah, thanks," Petra mumbles as if in a daze as she picks up the green cloth. Biting the flesh of her bottom lip as she takes off her blazer before putting the apron on.

"Congratulations, Petra Ral," Hanji says as she enthusiastically pats her on the back, "you're now an official employee of King's Place."

Petra smiles under Hanji's content expression. Smiling even at Levi's stoic face as she ties the apron's strings behind her back twice. Their comfortable silence only broken by Levi's grunt as he walks to the side of the counter and proceeds to stand behind the check-out machine.

"I'll begin arranging the new merchandise we received last Wednesday," Hanji says. Walking out from behind the counter the same way Levi walked in.

"Hn," Levi grunts again.

"Do you ever answer anything without a grunt?" Petra asks genuinely curious and with no trace of sarcasm in her voice.

"Hn."

"I'm not entirely sure," Petra says without turning to fully look at the boy, and only gazing at his dark outline, "but I think you just tried to make a joke."

"Hn."

"But someone as moody as you can't possibly have a sense of humor," she continuous as if he hadn't said anything at all, "so instead of trying to joke; I think you're just being your usual asshole-self." Levi says nothing, which suits her just fine, "there is nothing wrong with your bad attitude and crude disposition, though, sure it pisses me off, but overall it's better to be rude but honest than to be pleasant and a liar," she concludes that particular musing with a nod of her head before picking up the discarded towel Hanji was using before and wiping the counter again.

"Don't you find it odd," Levi suddenly says in a bored tone, after minutes filled with nothing but the sound of Hanji singing off-tune near the back and the sound of the towel wiping away, "that just this morning you were angry because of my so-called asshole ways, but now you're praising them?"

"I'm not," Petra says unperturbed, "I was merely stating a fact. Reading body language was so honed into me because of my degree that it's like second-nature now."

"Hm," he mumbles disinterestedly just as the front door opens. A distinct ding beginning to resound within the store with of the bell that's attached to it, and one she failed to notice the first time she entered King's Place as well as the second time; too preoccupied with Levi dragging her to work to noticed.

"The brats are here," he mutters under his breath as a pair of kids come inside. The boy, a brown-haired green-eyed boy, wearing a pair of worn jeans and shoes alongside a long-sleeve shirt with the logo of a cartoon-Titan on. While the girl, with dark hair and equally dark eyes, wears a red scarf over a gray button up along with a pair of jeans and shoes that resemble that of the boy's in their worn-out look.

"We've brought your pastries," the boy informs them as he stretches his arms high over his head to place the two sets of boxes he'd been carrying in his hands on the counter while the girl does the same.

"So you have," Levi casually replies without taking any sort of interest on the boxes laid before him nor the pair of kids that seem to be waiting for something.

"Come on, Levi," the boy says in what sounds like the beginning of a whine.

"Do you want me to congratulate you or something?" He annoyingly retorts, "applaud your valid efforts in bringing your oh so precious pastries down the street for us?"

The boy sighs, chin lowering as the girl's eyes narrow dangerously.

"You know he's only going to continue to plaster you until you agree, right?" Hanji says as she walks from the back up the store to the counter where the disenchanted children, a bewildered Petra, and an annoyed Levi are standing by.

"If you'd allowed me to do paperwork instead of making me work as a barista he would not have," Levi says through gritted teeth.

"But Petra has to shadow someone for the next few days to get used to the workload, and who's better to show her how the work is done than you?"

Steel eyes narrow as the green-eyed boy lifts his head to gaze at the amber-haired girl who'd been ignored for most part of their conversation, "is this a new employee?"

"No," Levi says in such a voice that Petra can almost visibly see the sarcasm dropping from each word, "she's just here for show."

Her body acts instinctively as she raises her arm, hand curled into a fist, and delivers a hard punch against his vulnerable left shoulder, "didn't we just talk about your asshole ways?"

"Che," he spats out in response before giving her a venomous look that does nothing to change the sudden steely look in her amber eyes, "we talked about them soon after we discussed your damn problems with respecting the private space of others."

Petra's mouth is already open to deliver a set of crude words she never thought she'd be able to waste on only one person, but is interrupted by the sight of a pair of incredulous wide green eyes, and the overflowing joy showing on Hanji's face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Levi says with distaste. His gray eyes slanting to match the dislike in his tone as he notices the stares they're now being subject to.

"Nothing, nothing at all," Hanji says cryptically before sighing blissfully and walking back towards the aisle she'd been stocking.

"And you brats," he snaps, "don't you have work to do?"

Levi's harsh words break the enchanting spell the boy seemed to have fallen in as his green eyes focus on them once more before absentmindedly nodding and gesturing for the girl besides him to follow him out the front doors.

"Who were they?" Petra asks as the looks at the kids' backs as they walk away. One of the boy's long-sleeves advertising the words 'A Colossal Menace' in faded red letters. Her now calmer amber eyes turning away from their fading backs and on the hard edges of Levi's face.

"Hn," he answers with a glare that lets Petra know her earlier transgressions have not been forgotten, "the one with the stupid face is Eren and the girl who's always with him is his step-sister Mikasa. Their mother runs the bakery shop down the street."

"They seem like good kids," she muses as she sets apart the different boxes to set them all out on the counter before opening one and looking at the strawberry cakes packed within.

"Good is a nice word for idiots," he mumbles in reply as he opens another box and leans down to begin to carefully place the pastries on the shelves behind the encasing see-through glass on the counter's lower section.

Petra hums as she, too, leans down and begins to place a strawberry cake on one of the shelves only to have Levi swat her hand away, "you don't know where that shit even goes."

Sighing, she stands upright reluctantly. Holding back her tongue on the comment of the pastries' names being clearly labeled on different sections of the shelves as she sees how meticulous he's arranging each piece of baked goodness. Deciding, instead, to engage him back into conversation, "you seem fond of them."

"About as fond of them as I am of you," he replies brusquely. His body never turning from his task at hand.

"You call people rude names as a way of endearment, Levi," Petra muses out loud. Eyes gazing out towards the lemon trees dotting the sidewalk directly outside the store.

"What is this?" He interrupts, bringing her out of her reverie, "are you so infatuated you're observing me like some fucking experiment?"

"No, I am not," she assures him; gaze traveling back from the lemon trees outside and to the slim wrist of his hands. Noticing his almost fragile fingers curling as they lift a pastry up, and the way the bones of his knuckles show under his pale skin. Their fragility reminding her of a bird's bones.

"Hn," he says without his usual frigid tone nor the sarcasm that she suspects is ingrained to his very being.

The rest of the morning passes in a blur of slapped hands, hot mugs being pressed into awaiting fingers, and the tantalizing smell of coffee beans being brew that impregnates the air with its warmth and bitter smell. Throughout the minutes that turned into hours in what seem like a mere blink of an eye, she gazes through her amber eyes at the lemon trees' slowly turning leaves, and at the outline of Levi's jaw as he lifts his head to check the chalkboard posted above their heads.

Against her better judgment, she can feel the beginning of a pull inside her chest expand the more she looks at the moody boy who complains about the shitty costumers who come and leave without buying anything. Her eyes turning immediately away like a fleeing bird when the ringing of the door's bell brings her out of her musings, or when a sudden sharp turn of Levi's head almost catches her off-guard.

It is not until her lunch time draws near that she suddenly realizes that she's falling into step with King's Place working pace as easily as she once did at the coffee shop at her old school. The ache she'd been carrying inside her chest since the moment she'd taken a step inside that bus under the heavy cloak of night lessening with each intake of breath.

"Oi," Levi says as he places a steaming cup of coffee in front of her, "take this."

"Nobody has ordered anything," she responds while taking the red mug from his hands. The coffee's steam flying upwards in distorted swirls of smoke, and blurring the edges of his chin.

"I know," he simply states before turning around and walking out by the gaping space between the brick wall and the counter. His narrow torso and hip bones fading behind a book aisle as he walks towards the back of the store where the sound of Hanji's enthusiastic foot tapping can be distinctly heard.

Petra gazes downwards to where the steaming red mug lays pressed between her hands; the smell of burnt sugar and cinnamon mixed with coffee beans warming her nose.

"Hey, Petra!" Hanji suddenly calls from the space before the counter; her voice forcing the young woman to lift her head back up to meet her kind brown eyes with her own bemused ones.

"Let's go to lunch together, okay?" She asks with such a bright smile that Petra can do nothing but nod.

"Great," Hanji beams. Patiently waiting for Petra to make her way out from behind the pastry counter with her red mug still in her hands. The goggled-wearing woman turns her head towards the back of the store just as Levi emerges from behind the same book aisle he disappeared in before. Now wearing a black jacket over his standard white shirt.

"Now that the gang's all here, let us go."

Fallen leaves and uneven stones mark the sidewalk under their feet just like soft laughs and grunts break the almost-crispy air around the trio as they make their way down the street towards a small, family-run restaurant Hanji is practically drooling for. Amber eyes laughing while gray eyes glare away from the spectacle that is a starving Hanji by Petra's side.

Petra's hands rise to bring the mug to her lips in a hastily attempt to drink enough of the hot beverage for it not to fall due to the swaying waves cursing within the small cup. Her amber eyes creasing around the edges as a smile breaks from her lips at the sight of an exuberant Hanji and disgruntled Levi walking by her sides. Breathing in the air faintly tinted by autumn's fingers, she continues to step under the lemon and clementine trees between the first persons met in Trost. One whose form of generosity is offering her a place to stay at a relative low cost, and the other one whose form of kindness is offering her a steaming mug of coffee with a stoic blank look on his face. But ones whose forms of kindness had undoubtedly helped her overcome the melancholy and homesickness she had carried like chains by her ankles since that morning she set foot outside the bus to step on a strange town named Trost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I am no good when it comes to summaries I'll just start posting quotes instead.  
> Also, if you're still reading this, thank you!  
> I have no idea why you are but thank you


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Petra Ral has come to Trost hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her personal life. Here are rooms with brick walls and windowsills covered in plant pots. Cold air that snatches warmth away and chipped coffee mugs to chase away the frigidness clouding the mind. Here are instruments waiting to be played and food waiting to be prepared.

“And you became like coffee, in the deliciousness, and the bitterness and the addiction”

–Mahmoud Darwish

The Story So Far

Chapter Four

 

It is during an early autumn day as the remaining green leaves of the lemon and clementine trees bravely make a last-ditch effort at staying alive under the steady progress of the ocean of yellow and red that's sprouting from the surrounding branches, that Petra first catches the signs of a heavy heart sustained by weary limbs and broken sighs.  
  
She catches the invisible signs between the dark book aisles where the Classical genre hides behind, in the form of heavy sighs not directed at anything. In the way long, elegant fingers hold each book page with silent grace and reverence. Steel-colored eyes unguarded and soften by the words Levi’s eyes find between the worn out covers. While the shadows clinging to the corners of the bookcases cast a spell of broken light across his slender frame; darkness underlining his eyes and jaw in a way that almost makes him seem haunted, but then he'd raised his head. Blink once at the sight of Petra holding books to be shelved, and the unfocused look his steely eyes once held would be gone. Replaced by his usual annoyed gaze, and with a grunt he'd pivoted on his heel and walk away; the book he had held being carefully placed above a bookshelf by the same slender fingers who had so patiently travel across its page margins moments before.   
  
It is during a slow, early autumn afternoon when Petra looks out the coffee shop's window panes, and notices a lazy breeze twirling the fallen leaves. Pulling them upwards to dance in circles the same way a puppeteer attaches strings through wooden holes to make their puppets dance with a mere flick of their fingers.

The sound of clicking can be heard in the background of her mind from where a costumer is typing away in his laptop. While the ever-present sound of coffee beans being brewed fills the air with its usual heavy aroma.   
  
Petra watches a pair of brave youths jogging down the sidewalk despite the crispier air, while younger kids mill around the street in a strange array of worn flannels and dark washed jeans. Feet carrying persons from the flower shop on one of the street's corners, and down to the doughnut shop. Hands carrying plastic bags from the grocery store across King's Place, or paper bags advertising the coffee shop's own name from people who've walked in and bought a book or two.   
  
Closing her eyes, Petra recalls the strange longing that had marred Levi's stoic face mere hours ago as he'd lost himself in a story depicting classical tales. His slightly parted lips causing her breath to catch by the sheer vulnerability she'd witnessed in a pale, angular face marred by the invisible scars of a bent heart.   
  
It would be easy to pretend as if she had seen nothing. To firmly shove the memory of his melancholic face, and the sound of his deep sighs to the back of her mind. It would be easy for Petra to open her eyes, and turn her face away from the window panes to gaze at the seemingly unmovable man besides her. To look at the way his fingers would curl around a damp towel, or the way his knees would smoothly rise and fall whenever he had to kneel down to reach a pastry for a costumer. It would be easy, yes, to gaze at the steely walls in his eyes and succumb to the depth within. Just as it would be easy to form walls of her own to block out the moon-like gravity pull of his eyes.   
  
Yet, as she opens her eyes and turns to steal a glance at the seemingly bored man at her left, she can't find the conviction to look for even a stone to form the foundations of her walls with. Petra blames his downward casted eyes; she blames his tightly pressed lips. She blames the moon for having the gravitational strength to pull the ocean's waves against their will, for his gray eyes surely learned a way to copy the moon's cunning tactic and are now using it against her. Petra even finds fault in the sun, for without his blazing light the moon would be casted in a darkness so deep there would be no light reflecting from its bottomless, mirroring lake.   
  
Petra bites her bottom lip as her brow begins to furrow. There is no light reflecting from Levi's own moonlight eyes; no extraordinary strength with which to pull ocean waves to do his bidding. Yet, there she is, a lost sun wanting to cast light into his impenetrable being. A compilation of disarray, crashing waves wanting to be acknowledge by his cold eyes.   
  
"You're starring again," Levi reproaches under his breath without taking his eyes off the counter where his hands are wiping the already spotless surface, "that can be classified as sexual harassment."  
  
A short snort is pull out of her lips before she clasps a hand over her mouth, "I wasn't staring!"   
  
"Hn," Levi hums in retort with none of his usual, quiet feistiness threading underneath his voice. His moon-colored irises fixated on dirty spots only he could see. While her own amber eyes grow creases around the edges as they narrowed in silent observation.   
  
"You're oddly quiet today," Petra faintly mumbles before turning around to replace the coffee beans in one of the coffee machines located on the back counters. Where up-turned mismatched mugs loitered the clean space, and upside-down small plates form precarious stands on the surrounding space. The material of her green apron scratching lightly against her palms as she wipes the strong odor of the beans away. 

"Don't be an idiot," Levi responds without turning to look at her; shoulders hunched over as he continues to wipe the worn towel around, "I always talk my share, but the moment I refrain myself from talking shit you turn suspicious."

 

"I'm not being suspicious," Petra admonishes with a small frown margin the usually smooth space between her brows, "I was merely asking," she continues. Raising her arms over her head, and smiling at the satisfying sound of her bones cracking while closing her eyes in simple joy.

 

"If you're done breaking your damn back get back to work," Levi mutters with a distinct edge she had never heard from him before just as the sound of the door's bell jingle impregnates the air within the coffee shop with a distinctive _ding_.

 

"Welcome to King's Place," a warm voice calls from somewhere within the many book aisles that makes Petra think of hot mocha served during a cold December night. The voice's lifting joy carrying throughout the air as Marco's warm welcoming filters through.

 

Petra had met the high school working boys on the start of her second day's shift. She fondly recalls the arch of Marco's dark brows as his whole face lit up in joy at the sight of his new co-worker, and Jean's wide eyes as he, too, took in the sight of Petra's shorter stature and warm gaze. While Hanji stood smiling next to her as she introduced them to each other.

 

In the beginning it had been odd to be under the perusal of the younger teenage boys, but as soon as she had spotted the _Legion_  logo on the sleeve of Marco's jacket, Petra had locked eyes with the dark haired youth, and proceeded to shower the tall boy with inconsequential questions ranging from his favorite song from the band as well as his take on their song  _'The Defeated'._ Jean's own eyes had sparked as he spoke of his undying devotion to learn the guitar riff for the song  _'Reluctant Heroes'_ ; a spark that had only continued to grow as Petra casually asked if his fingers had the G chords of the riff down yet. The incredulity in Jean's eyes lacing through his voice as he'd asked her if she played guitar, and after her simple nod, had immediately asked if Petra knew of any tricks she could share with him.

 

Minutes had ticked by as Petra's fingers curled and unfurled in a rapid pace under the focused gaze of Jean's dark eyes just like Marco's own eyes remained glue on her slender digits.

 

Levi had called them morons on his way towards the wooden plaque at the end of his morning shift. It was a simple plaque used by King's Place employees to hang their green aprons at the end of each shift, and where they picked them back up before the start of every work day. His offhand insult falling into deaf ears as the boy's concentration remained locked on Petra's hands; the same way her own focused gaze and attention fell solely on her fingers, and the memory of a song she had played months ago.

 

Deft fingers playing in the air the chords they had not touched since the moment her father's diagnosis had been made, but with the same agility as before.

 

Over mismatched hot mugs, flickering steam, and a napkin marred with long lines of ink that marked Marco's handwriting. The trio's eyes had fallen over the chaotic havoc that was their combined schedule to find a loophole day in which they could practice together in.

 

Since both boys were active participants in extracurricular groups that met throughout the week plus worked part-time at the coffee shop; they all three agreed on practicing on Saturday mornings.

 

The weekends being the only free days for the teenage boys, and the day where Petra's shift started until two in the afternoon. Sundays were their reserved day of freedom, and so they agreed on leaving those morning free as to have time to do homework, or in Petra's case, to relax from the steady workload she was doing at King's Place.

 

Now, mere hours afterwards, she smiles as she recognizes the warmth in Marco's voice, and the sound of an off-hand snort that characterizes Jean's personality.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Petra sees the impassive look on Levi's face as he, too, hears Jean's impolite snort. Lips parting as he says with annoyance, "can someone shut them up?"

 

Petra resists the urge to laugh, opening her lips instead to allow words belonging to the past flow through her mouth.

 

"When I was a child my father would often take me on bus trips around the country side," she starts. Eyelids falling half-way over her amber eyes as she recalls the sight of tree-filled hills and narrow roads, "he would never tell me our destination, only letting out a few words that were meant as clues."

 

By her side Levi continuous to wipe the counter clean, but she can tell by the subtle tilt of his head, a small sigh, and the small relaxation in his shoulders that he is listening, "a book named after a Polish boy was my first clue on a journey we took when I was eight; the name Rovinsky rolling off my tongue in broken syllabus and my dad's laughter filling my ears the same way pointy rocks and thick trees colored in the uneven outlines of the hills we were driving by."

 

Petra's amber eyes look through the sunbeams filtering through the crystal window panes, not noticing the broken light and narrow shadows, but instead seeing the bright rays of a rising sun that had bled through the windows of that bus so long ago.

 

"He'd woken me up at four in the morning, and told me to wear thick clothes. By that age I'd grown used to the unprompted road trips that had started since the day I had turned four years old; barely old enough to hold on to his pants’ legs. But not old enough to realized the meaning behind each trip, or the imprint of my mother's hands behind each clue."

 

Tilting her head, she recalls the thickness of the book her father had passed to her as they'd sat on the bus seats. The fondness behind his fingers as he'd passed it from his bare hands to her gloved ones.

 

"All I knew of our destination was the kind of climate I should expect, and that it would be somehow connected to a book with a thick cover and a large margin," by now her words are flowing more freely through her as each word is marked by the happiness she'd felt on that morning so long ago, "strangers filled the seats around us, and after the driver informed us we'd be leaving in a few minutes; we set off. I remember there were women wearing long socks, and boys with rosy noses hugging their knees to their chest. The smell of cloves and smoke curling around the bus's aisle as each passenger moved around in comfort.

 

"We drove on narrow roads, and through the windows I could see giant trees, fallen stones, and the sharp edges of cliffs as the bus drove down a mountain's curve. Gray clouds pressing on the hills' tops before dawn started to break through their fog fortress. Sunrise breaking through the sky on the other side of the road where cliffs took over, and the mountain tops stood at a lower height. The sight had left me breathless, and for one wonderful second I thought that the reason we'd left home at four in the morning had simply been to witness the sun rising over a faraway mountain."

 

Petra feels her lips curl in a smile as she remembers the way the sun had casted a painting of light pink and yellow hues across the sky, "the spell was broken when one of the red-nosed boys had sneezed, but the sense of contentment that had swept through me at the ethereal sight had stayed with me for the rest of the day.

 

"Our destination had been a small, family-owned restaurant in a village four hours away from home," Petra continues, taking a look down at Levi's still hands over the towel he'd been formerly cleaning with, "we arrived just as the owner's wife was opening, and proceeded to eat our fill in dark coffee, scrambled eggs and warm bread mixed with butter. A painting of an owl stared at us from the restaurant's left wall, while the sight of a one-lane road and picturesque houses from the open wall that also served as the entrance stood to our right. The owner's wife prepared breakfast for us and their other early-risers costumers from the kitchen located in front of us, while their teenage daughter set the tables and refilled empty mugs."

 

Letting out a sigh with the faintest of a laughter's hint, she adds, "over our thoroughly cleaned plates my dad had explained to me how the owner's father had grown up in a small village in Poland, and how my dad's own father had come to meet him as a teenager when the war's conflict had driven him away from his homeland to seek refuge in another country.

 

"The book he had given me as a clue was one that had been written years later after the war had ended by a woman whose name was not well-known, but whose book my grandfather had given his son when he'd turned fourteen. He had narrated in his worn-out voice the story of a young, blond boy he'd met at the factory he'd work at, and whose old life had ended with the resounding sound of a canon being fired. My dad explained how my grandfather had come to know the boy, and how he’d often helped him however he could. Our family has never been one with money, but he'd still helped him. Sharing his lunch, and providing a person the boy could speak to in order to lessen the anger and sadness he'd been carrying on his skinny shoulders since the war took away his home."

 

After closing her eyes tightly before opening them again a second later, she continuous, "years passed and when the war was finally over, the boy decided to stay and live in the same town as my grandfather. Saving up his money so one day he could buy a property of his own; a piece of land no one could ever take away. Years passed, and the boy met a girl. They fell in love and married a year later, and with the money my grandfather had given him as a wedding present they'd finally summed enough to buy some land where they could build their house on.

 

"The restaurant we'd visited on that day had once been the small, one-story house the boy and his wife had lived in, but now was sparser with the rooms his son had added over the years. The story within the book had not been the clue though, no, it had been the story behind the blond boy's life. Only after purchasing our bus tickets back home, and sitting  down on our seats did that my father reveal that the book he'd given me had been one the blond boy's son had gifted to my father years ago, and one he had then passed to me."

 

Blinking hastily as if coming out of a daydream, Petra lifts her arms over her head again, and stretches once more. Bones popping satisfactorily, and shoulders feeling lighter as if a weight had been lifted from them by telling a story of her father to a stranger who knew nothing of her past.

 

"Guess I better go help Marco restock the science fiction aisle," Petra says as she walks towards the counter's opening.

 

"Hn," Levi merely mumbles before letting out a soft sigh.

 

So softly, Petra almost doesn't hear it.

The lightness within the sigh oddly sounding as if he'd lost some of the weight he'd been carrying on his shoulders, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, thank you for those still reading this!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published fan fiction, so please be kind


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